How long it takes to pay off $10,000 of credit card debt

Months and interest for $10,000 by APR and payment

Find your APR in the first column and your monthly payment in the top row. The cell shows how many months it takes to pay off $10,000 and the total interest you pay.

The tables assume the APR stays the same, you make no new purchases and you pay no fees. Interest is the balance times the APR divided by 12, rounded to the cent each month. The last payment is smaller than the others.

• At 22%, paying $400 a month instead of $300 pays the card off 18 months sooner and saves $2,096 of interest.
• At 29%, $250 a month takes 143 months, or 11 years and 11 months, and costs $25,609 of interest. Adding $50 a month cuts it to 69 months and $10,575.

The 22% row is close to the US average. The Federal Reserve’s G.19 consumer credit release puts the average rate on credit card accounts that were charged interest at 22.15% in the second quarter of 2026. Your own APR is on your card statement.

Monthly payment to pay off $10,000 in 1 to 5 years

Pick when you want the card paid off. The table shows the payment you need each month at each APR.

Each payment is the smallest amount, to the cent, that pays off $10,000 within that many months. The last payment is a little smaller.

At 22%, paying it off in 3 years costs $3,748 of interest. Paying it off in 5 years costs $6,571. Your card statement shows a similar number for your own balance. It lists the monthly payment that pays it off in 3 years.

What if you pay only the minimum?

Each card sets its minimum payment with its own formula. Chase says that in most cases its minimum is 1% of the statement balance plus interest and late fees, or $40, whichever is greater. We use that formula as an example, without late fees. On $10,000 at 22%, the first month’s interest is $183.33 and 1% of the balance is $100.00. So the first minimum payment is $283.33.

This is an example, not your card’s formula. Your card may count interest by the day and add fees.

A real minimum payment does not stay the same. It goes down as the balance goes down, so paying only the minimum takes longer and costs more than this table shows. We do not estimate how much longer, because it depends on your card’s formula.

Your statement shows it. Under the Credit CARD Act, each monthly credit card statement must show a Minimum Payment Warning. It says how long it would take to pay off your balance with minimum payments only, and how much you would pay in total. When that takes more than 3 years, it also shows the monthly payment that pays off the balance in 3 years. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s CARD Act report describes the same rule.

Check your own card

Type your balance, APR and monthly payment into the free credit card payoff calculator. It shows the months, the interest and the payment for every month. To get the payment for a date, choose Target date under Calculate using. Every month count, interest total and payment on this page comes from the same code as that calculator. It runs in your browser with no sign-up.

Have more than one card? List them all in the debt payoff calculator. It shows which card to pay first with the debt snowball and with the debt avalanche. The snowball pays the smallest balance first. The avalanche pays the highest APR first. See the two methods compared.

Track the payoff on iPhone

Debt Payoff Planner: Tracker is an iPhone app for paying off debt with the snowball or avalanche method. You type in your cards and loans, and it plans the payoff and records each payment. It is free for up to 3 debts, with no account and no bank link. See it on the App Store.